


Killing Lies

by ClaraxBarton



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: BAMF Clint Barton, BAMF Phil Coulson, Gen, New Year's Eve, Winter Soldier on the loose!, Y2K, pre-S.H.I.E.L.D., pre-winterhawk, winterhawk - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-16 18:50:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16959567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClaraxBarton/pseuds/ClaraxBarton
Summary: A pre-S.H.I.E.L.D. Clint Barton adventure.For MimiCro55, who wanted a BAMF Clint





	Killing Lies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MimiCro55](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MimiCro55/gifts).



For MimiCro55, who requested some BAMF Clint. 

####    
  
  


The thing with following people, if you knew what the fuck you were doing, wasn’t that the person didn’t  _ see _ you, it was that they didn’t  _ notice _ you.

The trick of it was to blend in, to look so natural in the environment that no one would question why the  _ fuck _ you were still walking behind them after ten minutes and three subway stops.

Of course, that kind of thing was, well… It wasn’t impossible, but it was damn difficult.

Good thing Clint Barton  _ liked _ the difficult jobs.

Spying wasn’t so much his thing, not since he’d gotten out of the circus and gone off to lead his own life of crime.

Assassinations, now, those were his thing. 

Difficult targets, that only the Amazing Hawkeye could hit. And deserving targets, more than anything else. 

Clint didn’t kill just because someone told him where to aim. Not anymore. 

These days, if the Amazing Hawkeye killed you, it was because you fucking deserved it.

At least, that’s what Clint usually told himself.

This job, though?

This job was… Well, it was putting his not-inconsiderable skills to the test.

The first of which was, of course, spying.

Following his target around the city like a hound tracking the scent of a fox. Or something to do with predators and prey. 

It was the Eve of Y2K - in New York City, of all places - and Clint had been following his target for the last twenty minutes, through thick crowds of freezing tourists and locals alike, all wondering if this was going to be the end of the world or just another New Year’s Eve that would have the harsh light of the next day judging their very, very poor life choices.

Or maybe Clint was just projecting. Then again, it wasn’t like he needed a  _ holiday _ for his poor life choices to come back to haunt him.

As things stood now, however, Clint was beginning to worry that he  _ would _ be among those regretting their poor New Year’s Eve decisions.

But when the contract had come through, two days ago, Clint hadn’t been able to say no. Who in their right mind  _ would _ say no to the chance to take out the Winter Soldier, the most notorious assassin of the 20th century? A man who was… Well, maybe two men? Maybe twelve? There were too many myths to wade through to really ever know.

The facts were, however, that a very rich man who - if Clint’s hacking was any good, and it was - was likely Tiberius Stane, infamous chair of Stark Industries, wanted the Winter Soldier dead. Clint wasn’t entirely sure why. But, well, he didn’t actually care why Stane wanted the Winter Soldier dead. He just cared about all of those zeroes. And the chance to see if he was as good as he  _ wanted _ to think he was.

It was dumb, sure. But… well, no one had ever accused Clint of making  _ smart _ choices.

Taking on this contract? Kind of made perfect sense, really.

What didn’t make sense was what the hell the Winter Soldier was  _ doing _ wandering through the Times Square crowds.

He wasn’t moving like a civilian - hell, even the most brain dead cop would take one look at him and see how danger was practically wafting off of him like a cheap cologne.

He also wasn’t moving with all that much purpose - not like he had a target to get to, not like he even had somewhere to  _ be _ .

If anything, he was moving like he was lost, stopping every fifteen feet or so and looking around himself, as if trying to figure out where he was.

It was more than a little disconcerting to Clint, who had only ever thought of the Winter Soldier in the terms of ‘what a fucking badass’ and ‘I want to be him when I grow up’.

But now?

Now that Clint had been stalking the guy for half an hour?

Now, Clint had a few very different thoughts on him.

The first of which was, wow, the guy was smoking hot. Like, move over Brad Pitt and Antonio Banderas, and also that one weird recurring fantasy about Richard Gere - Clint had  _ new _ fantasy source material.

The second of which was that- 

Ahead of Clint, body obscured by a group of women in glittery top hats, the Winter Soldier came to a dead stop and looked right at Clint.

Not  _ through _ him, like he already had twice, but directly  _ at _ him.

Full eye contact.

And those eyes?

Not ones you wanted focused on you with that kind of narrowed intensity.

Clint swallowed hard, and resisted the urge to turn and run away. Barely.

But then the Winter Soldier started shoving his way through the crowd - not towards Clint, but  _ away _ from him.

So, new second thing, Clint thought as he too started to shove his way through in the wake of the Winter Soldier, was that the guy was a runner.

Not what he would have guessed. Not in a million years.

Third thing? Shoving through drunk people was hard work. Like, a million times more difficult than any workout on a damn Bowflex machine.

And was Clint getting old?

Fuck.

Was twenty-eight old?

Dear god, he was getting old.

He was-

Rather abruptly, Clint felt an arm wrap around his midsection and something sharp press against the left side of his neck.

Letting instinct kick in, Clint threw his weight back and to the left, throwing his attacker off-balance and into a group of men in flannel shirts and fur hats.

Shouts of anger rang out, and Clint spun, dropping low and-

Well,  _ fuck _ .

The man who had attacked him was in full black tac gear, making no effort at blending into the crowd, and definitely  _ not _ the Winter Soldier looping around to get the drop on Clint.

“Who the fuck are you?” Clint demanded, shouting over the sounds of the crowd.

“Who the fuck are you?” was the shouted response.

In Russian.

Which…

Okay. Not actually the strangest response to that question Clint had ever gotten.

Still, not the most comforting.

The Russian speaker lunged towards Clint, and Clint, having the advantage of being on his feet and a fucking lifetime of running away from people angry at him, took off.

Of course, taking off meant barreling into one drunk person after another, getting an elbow in his gut here, a shoulder in his armpit there, a foot tangled with his and-

And hands grabbing at his jacket.

Clint shrugged it off, letting his pursuer pull it away and hoping it would be enough of a distraction for Clint to slip through the crowd and-

More hands grabbing at him.

Different hands, however.

_ Very  _ different hands.

They were gloved, but one was definitely not normal. Definitely not-

Clint struggled to get free of the hands, but one of them tightened on his arm to the point of Clint wondering if his arm was about to be crushed in the vice-like grip.

He felt himself get dragged through the crowd, east of the direction he had been heading, but no matter how much he struggled, he wasn’t able to get free. 

Not until the crowd grew thin, and the lights dimmed just a bit, and suddenly they were in an alley, with only a handful of people milling about in parkas and-

Clint was roughly shoved up against the wall and found himself once again looking into the icy eyes of the Winter Soldier.

“Who the fuck are you?” the Winter Soldier asked, sounding like every other angry Brooklyn asshole Clint had ever encountered.

It was… jarring.

But then it felt utterly ridiculous.

Because Clint had been tailing the Winter Soldier, and some Russian-speaking asshole had been tailing  _ him, _ and now-

The brick just shy of Clint’s face exploded in a shower of clay that had both him and the Winter Soldier dropping to the street.

They both reached for their guns, rolling to their sides and aiming in almost perfect synchronization at the source of the attack.

And then, suddenly, there were  _ more _ hands on Clint.

He looked over, but it wasn’t the Winter Soldier. Because he, too, was being grabbed and pulled upright, away from Clint.

There was a damn swarm of men in black tac gear, four going for the Winter Soldier and shoving him against the opposite wall of the alley even as he fought and pushed and  _ growled _ at them.

Clint, meanwhile, stabbed the guy holding his right side with the knife Clint kept at the small of his back, and then whirled to his left and grabbed the guy, twisting him around until he was in between Clint and the rest of the men.

Holding his gun to the man’s head, Clint sucked in a breath.

“Anybody moves and I’ll shoot him,” Clint warned.

“We have armies to replace him,” growled the same Russian speaker who had grabbed Clint earlier.

To Clint, that wasn’t exactly the best way to inspire loyalty. But-

A gunshot rang out, and the man in Clint’s arms jerked and then slumped against Clint as deadweight.

_ What the fuck _ ?

Clint was torn between shoving the  _ corpse _ away from him in horror and continuing to hold it as a meat-shield.

Grimly, he tightened his grip.

The same man from before laughed, low and guttural and grating.

“So. This is the Amazing Hawkeye? Ha. I have to say… I thought you’d be taller.”

Clint snarled at him.

“You caught me on a short day.”

“Oh? Did I? Well, in that case-”

“Sergei, you’re out of bounds.”

All at once, all movement stopped, the words settling onto the stand-off like lead.

Now, that voice… that voice Clint had definitely heard before.

Many, many times.

With a resigned sigh, Clint turned to see none other than Phil Fucking Coulson, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., standing at the opposite end of the alley and flanked by a half-dozen men in suits.

“What do you care? We have an agreement regarding the Soldat, do we not?” The Russian speaker - presumably Sergei - gestured towards the Winter Soldier.

“We do,” Coulson agreed, ambling closer. “But we also have an agreement regarding S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, do we not?”

“Who -  _ that _ one?” Sergei gestured wildly towards Clint. “That one is no S.H.I.E.L.D. agent.”

And he was right. Because, despite Phil’s  _ six _ sales pitches over the last two years, Clint absolutely refused to tie himself to any organization.

He’d been there. Done that. He wasn’t about to get himself into shady shit again. Not unless he went into it with open eyes and by his own choice.

Coulson turned towards Clint and raised both eyebrows.

“Well?” Coulson asked.

And-

For fuck’s sake.

Clint sighed.

Either he finally fucking agreed to be Coulson’s date for the spy prom, or he prepared to get tortured and killed or… something else bad, probably, by Sergei and his buddies.

Buddies who, unless Clint had completely forgotten how to read body language, absolutely  _ terrified _ the Winter Soldier.

Clint hesitated, but he really,  _ really _ didn’t see any other way out of this.

He let the body drop to the ground.

“Yeah. I’m an Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.”

-o-

####    
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thank you CB for the beta and for kicking my ass!!!  
> And, as always, to Ro for being amazing and such a damn good beta reader!


End file.
